Cold Embers
by Soulreciever
Summary: Hisoka recovers after Kyoto. Blink and you'll miss it slash. Angst


Cold embers.

T: Inspired by the bittersweet edges contained within Iceman's Wish Matrix and brought to life because I've wanted to write a Kyoto central fic for a while and the song gave me the final push I needed. Slash connotations, though only if you look really hard! Angst and Kyoto spoilers. I own nothing that you see here, not even the plot bunny!!

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For the first week after the fire he was lost within the pain of healing, lost to the harsh rasp of burned skin against cloth and the constant agony that tore through him each time that he took a breath.

In the second week he came back to himself enough to ask after the other, to assure that all this agony had not been in vain. They had looked at him with such pity in their eyes, the salt edge of this emotion making his wounds all the more unbearable and making him harsher to them than they had deserved. This brusque manner has always been a part of him in this place and they ignore it with the swift disregard of practice and answer his enquiry, give to him the news that he had wished to hear.

In the third week he becomes strong enough that he is able to turn a little in his bed, this new orientation allowing him to see the other at last, to add visual confirmation to the verbal that he had received the week before.

In the days after he has turned himself in the bed he contents himself with watching the movement of the other's chest, fills his mind of the joyful memories of the yesterdays they had spent together and deliberately blanks away the thought of what their tomorrows shall hold. The other watches him watching, the hazed detachment of his emotions making thoughts of the future all the more frightening, making him uncertain as to whether the other is truly content to live simply for his sake.

In the forth week he opens his mouth to voice this enquiry, to ask the other if he had been truly sincere in his want to remain in a place that is hateful to him, yet fear, as well as his foolish pride, leaves the words unspoken.

In the days after this hesitation he dreams not of sakura and a blood red moon, but of arriving too late, of standing helpless as the other is snatched from him.

In the fifth week the other comes to him, the heat of his hands as they settle upon his face as a focus for his scattered thoughts, as the oddest of assurances.

"Is everything alright?"

He knows that he should be the one asking this question, knows that the other has suffered so very much more than he has in the last month and he responds with his own enquiry of,

"What do you think?"

For a long while the other gives no response to the enquiry, his posture changing as he thinks through his answer, the link his hand had provided between them snapping as he does as such.

He looks at that hand as it curls into the other's lap, his heart filled with the dread that this shall be how things shall always be now between them, that no matter how much he would desire otherwise his partner wishes only to die.

A moment before he thinks to tell the other that such a wish is allowed, that he has no want to keep the other in this place by force, he feels that hand again on his cheek.

Glancing upwards he is met with the certain force of the other's emotional imprint and with a smile that he believes the truest he has seen upon the other's lips.

"Nothing is as it was, Hisoka and I am afraid…afraid that I shall continue to bring hurt to innocent people, afraid that I shall be trapped always in this hated life and so very afraid that you shall see me for the monster that I truly am."

That the other is giving him this truth, exposing so very much without the necessity to do as such, is as the greatest show of how much the other trusts him and, responding to this fact he says,

"I am afraid also, Tsuzuki…afraid that my pride will be as a distance always between us, afraid that I shall never be able to be 'normal' and so very afraid that I have asked too much of you, that it would have been better to let you go."

He is pulled into a desperate hug a moment later and, in the comfort of the intimacy of this touch, he finds an answer to his unasked enquiry.

Finds assurance that Tsuzuki is more than content to live simply for his sake.

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T: I really wanted to keep the sense of desperate hope that is present within Wish Matrix in this story while giving it an edge of its own and bringing some sort of conclusion to things. I hope that I've achieved one or more of these things and you can feel free to inform me otherwise.


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